According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over 40,000 people in North America die each year from infections caused by drug-resistant germs. Emerging bacterial resistance to currently known classes of antibiotics is a major worldwide health problem. In addition, the most commonly used antibiotics (e.g., macrolides, beta-lactams, and quinolones) were initially introduced more than thirty years ago. Antibiotic resistance is a critical health problem, aggravated by the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria, and requires urgent attention by the scientific community.
The overuse of antibiotics have sped up evolutionary adaptations that enable bacteria and other microbes, such as viruses, fungi, and parasites, to survive these drugs. In addition, recent studies have shown that the common use of antibacterial products, such as soaps, hand santizers, and household, can lead to the development of tolerance for certain antibiotics. For example, such “cross-resistance” has been shown between triclosan, a common chemical in antibacterial hand sanitizer, and drug resistance to isoniazid, an antibiotic used for treating tuberculosis.
Drug resistance is an increasingly difficult problem in hospitals since critically ill patients are less able to fight off infections without the help of antibiotics. Heavy use of antibiotics in these patients selects for drug resistance strains of bacteria. Unfortunately, this worsens the problem by producing bacteria with greater ability to survive in the presence of even the strongest antibiotics. These “superbugs” have even developed resistance to vancomycin, which was once considered the “antibiotic of last resort”.
A key factor in the development of antibiotic resistance is the ability of infectious organisms to adapt quickly to new environmental conditions. Bacteria are single-celled organisms with a relatively small numbers of genes and can reproduce rapidly. Therefore, a mutation that helps a microbe survive exposure to an antibiotic will quickly become dominant throughout the microbial population. The increasing pace with which bacteria evolve drug resistance coupled with the lack of new classes of antibiotics has driven the need for new research strategies.
Accordingly, there exists a need for new antibiotic targets, and methods of identifying new antibiotics. In particular, new compositions capable of inhibiting protein synthesis and/or new antibacterials targeting new sites in the ribosome would satisfy a long-felt therapeutic need.